


One Sided Conversation

by nerdfighterwhatevernumbers



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Coma, Grief, Hospital, M/M, Mourning, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16111385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdfighterwhatevernumbers/pseuds/nerdfighterwhatevernumbers
Summary: Martin visits Jon in the hospital





	One Sided Conversation

“I’m, uh, not sure how to feel about Lukas as our new boss. I don’t trust him obviously, but maybe he’s less of a threat?”

Jon, as usual, remained unresponsive in his hospital bed. 

“He offered to have the institute pay for counseling. Can you believe that?” Martin gave a humorless laugh, “Anyone we went to would have us choking down handfuls of anti-psychotics at best. Maybe there’s some kind of... secret... eldritch therapist we’re supposed to go to or something.”

Martin looked down at the still body. He imagined Jon rolling his eyes, glowering at him for being ridiculous, puffing out his chest in an aggravated sigh. 

His chest did not move. There wasn’t so much as the slightest shift in his eyes. 

Jon made no sounds, not even the quietest breath when Martin moved him to fix his pillow.

Martin talked while he fussed, “He hasn’t done anything to hurt us yet though, can’t say that much for Elias. I doubt Melanie will ever trust him, I mean he is Elias’s friend.”

He folded down the yellow quilt laying over Jon, worried the summer heat would get to him even in the air-conditioned hospital. Martin adjusted the top sheet, smoothing it out then tucking him in, letting his arms lay on top of the thin blanket. 

The quilt was from Georgie, of course. She was the only one who seemed half as concerned as Martin, and visited almost as much. He liked to think her visits cheered Jon up.

Even if it was a lie, it was a comforting one.

“We do have plenty of time off now,” Martin said, the bedside chair squeaking as he sat down, “I could read to you sometime- Georgie said you might like that. I have some poetry here, but uh, don't worry, it's one of her books, not mine," he laughed weakly.

Martin’s hands rested on the bed next to Jon’s. He should have been able to feel the warmth radiating from his body, but there was nothing. He'd always heard you were supposed to look asleep when you were in a coma, but Jon's body was far too limp and wrong for anyone to mistake it for sleep. Martin might have said Jon looked dead, but he didn't look peaceful enough for that.

"We might even... have enough time for a funeral,” Martin fiddled with the cheap plastic vase on the nightstand. He wasn't sure Jon liked flowers, but he hoped they would cover up the smell of sterility and sickness only a hospital could combine so terribly. So far they weren't doing anything to keep Martin from feeling nauseous. 

“I don’t know what the Institute told Tim's family. Or if he had any family left to tell. Years working together, you think I would know.”

He kept his body still as his hands began to shake.

“I don’t...um,” he forced the air down his throat, knowing that if he spoke before it disappeared it would come out in tears, “It would be just the Institute if we held a funeral. Tim was a bit ‘intense’ the last year, but some people in research still liked him. I have to talk to Melanie and Basira about it. Maybe we could wait until you wake up."

However long that was.

"Part of me thinks it would be easier if it was just us, you know? We were always in this together. No matter how much he hated it. We weren't all that close, but people outside the archives can't know him the way we did. I mean, we know what happened. He _saved the world_."

Tim was angry, and stubborn, and brave, and above all he was Martin's friend.

He didn't deserve to die.

He didn't deserve anything the Circus had done to him.

And no one would even know what he'd done for them.

They'd all gone into that museum risking their lives and what hurt Martin the most was knowing he was lucky to get any of them back at all.

Martin stared at Jon. They didn't know if he'd ever open his eyes again. He shouldn't be alive, he didn't even have a pulse and everyone kept telling him Jon might never wake up. But he was here.

Martin's eyes stung, his voice burning in his throat.

"He saved you, and I'll never get to thank him for that."

 Martin clenched his fists so tightly his nails dug into his palms.

"If he hadn’t gone in with his stupid _death wish_ -”

Martin’s chest tightened and he kept his body tense as the tears spilled from his eyes, willing his body to keep the tears from growing into sobs.

“I shouldn’t,” he gasped, struggling to control himself, “I shouldn’t blame him. Daisy didn’t come back either. Basira doesn’t want her to have a funeral. She says she doesn’t think it’s over. I-I can’t not say goodbye to Tim. We don’t even have a body...”

Martin stared at different points in the room, waiting for his body to let him come down.

The blue waves on the monitors, showing the only signs Jon wasn’t gone.

The striped curtains that gave them the semblance of privacy from the other coma patients.

The ticking hand on the wall clock that seemed to be going nowhere.

He inhaled and exhaled deeply, slowing his breathing but not the tears.

“We didn’t get to bury Sasha. We didn’t even get to mourn the real her. I need it to be real this time. He should have something real.”

Martin brought his attention back to Jon. He looked so vulnerable, surrounded by tubes and machines, body thinner and paler than ever. Martin desperately wished he could do something- anything but uselessly watching and crying. Martin’s hand moved towards Jon’s, hesitating. It almost felt wrong, like he was taking advantage of Jon's state for the sake of his own comfort. Martin took a deep breath. It was just a hand. 

Martin gently slid his hand into Jon’s, cool soft skin resting limply against his own. There was nothing Martin wanted more than to feel that hand squeezing around his fingers. He willed Jon to feel him, to know he wasn't alone, that they were waiting for him, that someone loved him. It ran through him like a desperate prayer, reaching out to Jon, pleading for some kind of connection, anything he could cling to. 

In return, he felt nothing.

Tears dripped onto the back of Jon's hand, cold and unmoving.

"You don't deserve this," Martin whispered, "You saved us too. Please, come home. I need you," he could feel his resolve breaking, “Jon, please,” he begged, voice as fragile as cobweb, “Don't make me lose you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> #GiveMartinBlackwoodaHug2019


End file.
